FC: Some defenses of political spam and Sen. Lieberman's bulk mail

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

If you've got nothing else to do this afternoon, I'll be on CNN at 2 pm ET 
today talking about political spam. Also, I went on NPR's for On the Media 
this week to talk about political e-mail astroturfing. The show airs on 
most NPR stations at different times over the weekend:
http://www.wnyc.org/onthemedia/stations.html

Previous Politech messages:

"Weekly column: Sen. Joseph Lieberman, spammer-in-chief?"
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04335.html

"Can we stop Sen. Joseph Lieberman from spamming?"
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04336.html

-Declan

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Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 22:17:43 -0500
To: declan () well com
From: Marc Rotenberg <rotenberg () epic org>
Subject: Re: FC: Can we stop Sen. Joseph Lieberman from spamming?

"I'm sorry, Mr. Paine, the British Colonialist
Communications Act prevents the publication of
Common Sense. You need to get permission from
your readers before you write to them with your
concerns about British rule."

Marc Rotenberg

---

Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 21:35:56 -0700
From: "Allen S. Thorpe" <athorpe () etv net>
To: declan () well com
Subject: Re: FC: Weekly column: Sen. Joseph Lieberman, spammer-in-chief?

I won't call it spam until I keep getting the same message over and 
over.  Political candidates have a right to contact the voters, and this is 
as good as any.  If it gets to be like the wall-to-wall TV ads ahead of 
elections I'd filter it, but I think it's more important than the usual 
spam content.

I think the "adventure" theme is poor campaigning, however.  Who cares if 
Lieberman is thrilled to be a candidate?  The real issue is what his 
qualifications are and what his policies will be.  If this is for 
fundraising, I'm not inclined to pay for his excellent adventure.

Allen S. Thorpe
Castle Dale, UT  84513

Office e-mail:                                              Home e-mail: 
thorpe () co emery ut us                              athorpe () etv net

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Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 04:23:05 -0500 (EST)
From: Alan Brown <alanb () digistar com>
To: declan () well com
Subject: MEDIA: Re: Sen. Joseph Lieberman, spammer-in-chief?
In-Reply-To: <20030120215553.A27870 () cluebot com>

On Mon, 20 Jan 2003, Declan McCullagh wrote:

> Since y'all enjoyed my FTC spam article so much, I thought the list would
> appreciate my column today:
> http://news.com.com/2010-1071-981258.html

I suspect large scale political spam may be a good thing, long term.

After all, wasn't it misuse of "protected political speech" which led to
quite strong laws about the use of loudspeaker trucks?

How would some of these politicians react to being served with lawsuits
from large ISPs for theft of services?

---

From: "Suresh Ramasubramanian" <suresh () hserus net>
To: <declan () well com>, <politech () politechbot com>
Cc: <brad () templetons com>
Subject: RE: Brad Templeton on Sen. Lieberman, laws, and overseas spam
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 10:35:51 +0530

On Tuesday, January 21, 2003 9:32 AM [GMT +0530=IST],
 Declan McCullagh (declan () well com) writes:

> Subject: FC: Brad Templeton on Sen. Lieberman, laws, and overseas spam
> From: Brad Templeton <brad () templetons com>
>
> I think people fear not just candidate mail when it comes to
> political spam.  Many people feel that dealing with spam must
> be done in a content-neutral way, with no special punishments

Excellent point.  I personally believe in what is an often repeated quote on
news.admin.net-abuse.email - "Spam is not about content, it is about
consent".

"Praise the Lord" and "Vote for me" are as much spam as "Herbal Viagra" or
URGENT BUSINESS PROPOSALs from relatives of dead African generals.

> (Not that domestic spam laws have much chance of actually working.
> We have 25 spam laws now, I think, and none have done a whit against
> spam nor shown much sign of doing so.  However, the definition of

Spam laws are merely an additional stick to beat spammers with.  The FTC's
efforts against spam that shills illegal products, or the USPIS' efforts
against mail fraud through spam (the pyramid scheme / chain letter MLM
stuff) are just extensions of offline efforts to nail such crimes when they
are sent over fax (or handbills stuffed into your mailbox).

> In fact, attempts to regulate only advertising fail, as a good
> percentage of spam today is not advertising.  (The most common spam
> is a confidence trick that offers no product for sale but offers to
> give you 22 MILLION DOLLARS hidden in a Nigerian bank.)

These are, as I said, online extensions of scams that have been running for
decades offline in postal mail, fax, classified ads in newspapers,
whatever - these are just online versions of assorted mail and wire fraud
scams.

The spam that *has* to be addressed is often not covered under any law
(indeed, is sometimes specifically exempted in some cases).  The spam I am
speaking about is "optout" (or "unconfirmed optin" spam by otherwise
legitimate companies, the online equivalent of cold calling in the
telemarketing industry.

The major issue here is not just privacy (though that _is_ the next most
important issue).  What sets spam (unsolicited bulk email) apart from other
intrusive marketing techniques is the fact that it is a transference of
cost.  The sender bears almost zero cost.

The sender's ISP, the owner of whatever server(s) and networks this spam
passes through (sometimes, without the server owner's consent, as in spam
through open relays / proxies), the recipient's ISP, the recipient himself
(you say the net is free / cheap?  try reading your mail over a cellphone or
blackberry, for example).

Add to this the non-obvious cost of spam - such as when a bible belt
christian who is a senior executive in a large organization gets spammed
with (say) porn advertising "chicks with horses".  Her time is worth a *lot*
to the company - so any loss the company bears by her being so upset that
she has to take the day off, go home and cry.

More of the same in this article -
http://www.spider.tm/jan2003/coverstory.shtml (sorry for the typos and the
missing URLs in the article - none of which are of my making) :(

        srs

---

Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 07:25:40 -0700
To: declan () well com
From: Charlie Oriez <coriez () oriez org>
Subject: Re: FC: Brad Templeton on Sen. Lieberman, laws, and overseas
  spam
In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.0.20030120223209.02816f40 () mail well com>

Good reason content based filtering doesn't work -

Spamnix, based on content, decided that your message was spam (see 
below).  If I were blocking instead of just tagging, it would have been 
deleted instead of read.  Yet if the system isn't reliable enough to let 
me  block/delete the spam unread, it isn't doing the job.

Spam is not about content, it's about consent.  Although I have run for 
office previously as a Democrat, I reported Democratic spam this year just 
as quickly as I reported Republican National Committee spam in previous 
years.  A candidate who views theft as an acceptable means of getting his 
message out lacks the integrity to hold office regardless of his party.

People wanting to proactively block the spammer should list
207.44.162.44 as the likely mail server

If you want to block the ISP who refuses to take them down for spamming, 
the range is
NetRange: 207.44.128.0 - 207.44.255.255  This will avoid the possibility of 
their ISP moving them around to avoid blocking lists.

If you want comment on why they haven't been terminated already, contact
TechName: Williams, Randy
TechPhone: +1-713-400-5400
TechEmail: admin () ev1 net




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